Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"I didn't read the whole letter," Richard admitted. "Before I was able to finish it, we were attacked by men that Nicholas had sent to capture us. I told you about it before-that was when Sabar was killed. During that fight the letter fell into the fire."

Nicci slouched back. "Dear spirits," she murmured. "I thought you knew."

Richard was tired and at the end of his patience. "Knew what?"

Nicci let her arms slip to her sides. She looked up at him in the dim light and let out a frazzled sigh.

"Jagang found a way for the Sisters of the Dark he holds captive to use their ability to begin creating weapons out of people, as had been done during the great war. In many ways, he is a brilliant man. He makes it his business to learn. He collects books from the places he sacks. I've seen some of those books. Among all sorts of tomes, he has ancient handbooks of magic from around the time of the great war.

"The problem is, while he may be a dream walker and brilliant in certain areas, he does not have the gift and so his understanding of it, of exactly what Han is and how this force of life functions, is crude at best. It's not easy for one without magic to comprehend such things. You have the gift and yet even you don't really understand it or know very much about how it works. But because Jagang doesn't know how to work magic, he blunders around demanding that things be done simply because he has dreamed them up, because he is the great emperor and he wishes his visions to be brought to life."

Richard rubbed his fingers back and forth on his brow, rolling off the dirt. "Don't sell him short in that regard. It's possible that he knows more about what he's doing than you realize."

"What do you mean?"

"I may not know a lot about the subject of magic, but one of the things I have learned is that magic can also be thought of much like an art form. Through artistic expression-for lack of a better term-magic that has never been before can be created."

Nicci stared in astonished disbelief. "Richard, I don't know where you could have heard such a thing, but it just doesn't work that way."

"I know, I know. Kahlan thinks I'm out on a limb with this, too. Having been raised around wizards, she knows a lot about magic and in the past she has flatly insisted that I'm wrong. But I'm not. I've done it before. Using the gift in such a way, in new and original ways, got me out of what would otherwise have been unbreakable traps."

Nicci was peering at him in that analytical way of hers. He suddenly realized why. It wasn't only what he'd said about magic. He was talking about Kahlan again. The woman who did not exist, the woman he had dreamed. Cara's expression betrayed her mute concern.

"Anyway," Richard said, getting back to the crux of the matter, "just because Jagang doesn't have the gift, doesn't mean he can't still dream up things-dream up nightmares-like Nicholas. It is through such original conceptualization that the most deadly things, for which there may be no conventional counter, are created. I suspect that this may have been the method those wizards in ancient times used for creating weapons out of people in the first place."

Nicci was beside herself with bottled agitation.

"Richard, magic just doesn't work like that. You can't dream up whatever you'd like to have, wish for what you want. Magic functions by the laws of its nature, just like all other things in the world. Whim will not make boards out of trees; you must cut the tree to the desired form. If you want a house, you can't wish up bricks and boards to stack themselves into a dwelling; you must use your hands to craft the structure."

Richard leaned toward the sorceress. "Yes, but it's the human imagination that makes those concrete actions not just possible, but effective. Most builders think in terms of houses or barns; they do what's been done before simply because that was what was done before. Much of the time they don't want to think, so they never envision anything more. They limit themselves to repetition and as an excuse they insist that it must be done that way because it has always been done that way. Most magic is like that-the gifted simply repeating what has already been done before, believing that it must be done that way with no more justification than that it has always been done that way.

"Before a grand palace can be built, it first has to be imagined by someone bold enough to have a vision of what could be. A palace will not spontaneously spring forth to the surprise of all while men are attempting to build a barn. Only the conscious act of conceptualization can bring about the reality.